Anti Measure K activist Tony Bushala has lodged a formal request to OC District Attorney Todd Spitzer to investigate whether Fullerton Joint Union High School personnel illegally campaigned for the March 3rd bond effort.
Okay, do something…we dare ya.
According to State law, it is impermissible to expend public resources on behalf of an election. It’s a crime. Public agencies do it all the time, of course, and generally do it with impunity. Sometimes it’s subtle, sometimes it’s flagrant. Yet rarely does anybody challenge the behavior. But Mr. Bushala has. Below is a facsimile of an e-mail he sent to Spitzer today.
FFFF has already noted the school district personnel intimately involved in the K scam, and the idea that no district resources were used in the campaign is laughable. The District has already been caught using graduation tickets to bribe kids into “volunteering” for the campaign. Likewise school fences were used for pro-K banners. It’s easily conceivable that the people listed in the campaign reports used District communication networks and even physical space to try to foist K on the taxpayers.
Well, good luck Tony in your endeavor. You’ve already helped save home owners hundreds of million on the K and J grabs.
By now you Friends are well aware of the flaming crash and burn known as Yes on K – the $300,000,000 Fullerton Joint Union High School bond grab that was hammered at the March 3rd polls. Yes, we know about the scam: the last minute approval, the deceit and flim-flam, the illegal use of public facilities and personnel to foist this bureaucratic-inspired, taxpayer funded joyride on the public.
Maybe the worst offense by the educrats and their pals who worked behind the curtain for Measure K was the way in which the legal campaign reporting requirements were mysteriously dodged – no records of the Yes on K campaign were to be found on either the Secretary of State’s website, or on the Orange County Registrar of Voters’ pages. How come? We’ll never know because those in charge of such things don’t care and know they are shielded by a system that tolerates it.
But that omission spurred a complaint by anti-K activist Tony Bushala, whose complaint produced, finally, an actual record by the Yes On K Committee. Now we finally get to know who funded this dumpster fire, who organized it, and who profited by it.
First, let’s examine the names of the contributors. You’ll notice that there aren’t very many. And please note that there are are no citizens listed. None. Just parasites of the educrational system: architects and engineers, all. People who have been cajoled, sweet talked, coaxed into giving money – lots of money – to the cause.
Something called Ghataode Barron Architects got stuck for an amazing 50 grand. Let’s remember that name, folks. Another happy contributor was pjhm, a lower case sucker looking to make bank on our dime. And there’s an architectural consultant from North Carolina? Really? Our overpaid administrators had to work overtime to find somebody across the country , Little Diversified,that was dumb enough to be shaken down for a lost cause. Obviously, the Newport Beach office didn’t inform corporate about how little $49,900 buys you in Fullerton these days. Finally, let us not overlook PBK, another architectural operation that has gotten greasy-fat off over priced school construction.
Fortunately the campaign filings also reveal some of the educrats who got themselves reimbursed out of petty cash for “phone bank supplies,” whatever that means. Here they are:
Hmm. Will Mynster. Now where have I seen that name before? Oh, right Principle of Troys HS and an architect himself – an architect of illegal use of public school resources and property for campaign purposes. Renee Gates is an Assistant principal in the district. So is Dan Sage. So is Caroline llewellyn. So is Jacqueline Barry. So is Marvin Atkins. So is Marcene Guerro. So is Steve Garcia. So is Belinda Mountjoy. So is Katie Wright. So is Jill Davis. Adam Baily has graduated to full-fledged principal. Todd Butcher is the guy in charge of construction for the district – a guy whose livelihood depends on a flow of cash from these massive bonds. What these six-figure educrats were reimbursed for remains a secret, although one supposes that manning the phone bank as the campaign took on salt water required lots of pizza and red wine. The real point here, of course, is that the whole operation was run by well-paid public employees with a personal interest in the outcome – and no private citizens, at all.
Ms. Moss smiles. The suckers were in need of a little wallet lightening…
And finally we come to the campaign consultant, who, along with some unnamed bond salesman shares the credit for this fiasco, although we should be thankful for their failure.. The name is Clifford Moss, who charged the District, er, um, the Committee over $30,000 in “fees,” not counting what they raked in as overhead on stuff like crummy mailers and yard signs. Clifford Moss. Hilariously Cliff’ got their ass handed them by a local guy, Tony Bushala, who didn’t cost anybody else anything. And it looks like Clifford Moss’s Laura Crotty, who somehow managed to spend fifty bucks on name tags, won’t be bragging about her 2018 100% campaign win rate anymore.
The Yes on K campaign blew over a hundred grand, outspent the opposition 10 to 1 and still lost in the “Education Community.” For those in the business that might suggest a rough road ahead – almost as bad as Fullerton’s notorious potholes. But the K Committee left almost 90 grand in the locker room, so don’t be surprised Dear Friends if they don’t try to slip this onto a future ballot at the end of some little-advertised board meeting.
It was like getting hit with a broomstick all over again…
There is an old axiom among you humans that birds of similar plumage tend to congregate. It seems to have a strong element of truth.
Here is a disturbing image of former Fullerton councilwoman Pame Keller, beneficiary of the scam called “Fullerton Collaborative,” posing with Paulette Marshall – confessed thief, perjurer, and shameless campaign laws violator.
Please provide a caption.
P.S. My inebriated former mistress used to walk me by the Chaffee place everyday and encouraged me to relieve my bowels in their driveway. Was that so very wrong?
Yesterday a lot of chickens fluttered home to roost for sign thief and fake carpetbagger Paulette Marshall Chaffee. After spending hundreds of thousands of bucks for a part time job on the county’s Board of Education, she was defeated, and defeated badly. The job goes to La Habra’s Tim Shaw, another candidate who unloaded a boat load of dough.
Dr. Vicky waiting for Paulette at the finish line…
But the most humiliating part of all for Paulette was getting beaten soundly by Vicky Calhoun, a woman who spent almost nothing.
And that’s where I put the sign in the back of the car…
Have we seen the last of Ms. Marshall? Hard to say. The woman is oddly unaware of her own unpopularity and the stigma with which crime decorates the perpetrator.
It looked good from far, but it was far from good…
One thing is certain, however. The tale of the little web of phony “community news” websites that were concocted by the Chaffees without any Fair Political Practices Committee requirements isn’t over by a long shot. Ms. Paulette can look forward to yet another day in court.
I just took a quick tour of the required Form 460 campaign documents for the “committee” that is pushing for the $190,000,000 Fullerton Elementary School Bond measure on next Tuesday’s ballot. Sure enough, Schedule A, the contributor list for mid-January to mid-February was studded with district contractors, architects and other commercial hangers-on whose livelihood depends upon the goodwill of the administrators who no doubt illegally leaned on them to pony up. It was also turned in grossly incomplete and hopefully isn’t representative of the quality of homework turned in required by students in the district.
The list was also remarkable for the relatively few district employees willing to drop their proverbial dime to the cause a few dozen. Remember that the district has hundreds of employees who pull down $100,000 or more, annually. In some cases, a helluva lot more.
But what really caught my attention was Schedule G, a page of which I faithfully reproduce below:
Mardi Gras came early…
Here we see an “independent agent” named Rob Coghlan dishing out $3500 for fundraising parties at a couple of downtown restaurants. How amusing. Well, hell, I like a good time as much as the next Irish-American, but really, $3500 to try to to raise money? Or maybe it was just to recognize previous camp follower donors. Who knows? But I do know that Robert Coghlan is an administrator in the school district. I sure hope he hasn’t been working during company time to lean on district contractors or employees for donations to his cause; or that maybe he really likes depositions.
California Education Code, Section 7054(a) which states in pertinent part:
No school district or community college district funds, services, supplies, or equipment shall be used for the purpose of urging the support or defeat of any ballot measure or candidate, including, but not limited to, any candidate for election to the governing board of the district.
And now Exhibit “B”. This little enticement by The Troy Difference to break that very law.
High School Graduation tickets are generally limited to six tickets per student, which limits how much of one’s extended family can attend (and immediate family, if it is large enough). Giving out tickets based on their political beliefs is utterly repugnant, in addition to a violation of the law.
Now, there is one important caveat here: the Troy Difference is a PTSA organization and not, strictly speaking, the school district itself. Therefore the District could potentially claim that they had no knowledge of the offer when it was made and took appropriate steps to shut down the PTSA’s action and prevent them from following through.
Did they? Nope, not even close. The Precinct walk and the illegal promise proceeded as planned. Here’s the precinct captain at 9:00 am on February 22, 2020, well after the blowup over their campaign tactics (Exhibit “C”):
It gets better, as the volunteer states that “Ms. Gates” is more involved in the offer (Renee Gates is the Current Assistant Principle). Also, this does not appear to be the only Troy organization which has been making this pitch.
This is not the conduct of a campaign that is secure in their position. This is a campaign that is afraid it is losing and is willing to break the rules to prevent that from happening.
According to The Fullerton Observer, North Orange County Community College District trustee, Molly McClanahan has pulled the plug on her career as an alleged overseer of the bureaucracy at the local junior colleges. Her seat will remain vacant until the November election, a rather telling sign of how critical the job is.
Knowledge just leads to complicity.
Of course Molly didn’t get on the board via an election like her successor will. No she got this job 25 years ago as a boohoo consolation prize for being recalled from the city council by the people of Fullerton in June, 1994. The cause? A completely unnecessary utility tax that was foisted on us to save the city from imminent destruction. Like her two compatriots, Don Bankhead and Buck Catlin she refused to leave the council until a judge forced the City to hold a replacement election. Same arrogance as ever, yesterday, today, tomorrow.
Lights out…
On the council Good Old Molly never veered from a completely predictable path. Always handy with a bubble-headed cliché, she was a constant supporter of Redevelopment boondoggles and expansions, and any other nonsense put in front of her by “staff.” Her supporters always bragged that she “did her homework.” Yet when it came time to take the test there was never anything that remotely smacked of intelligence or the willingness to vote alone, if necessary.
Likewise, McClanahan’s career trajectory over the past two and a half decades on the JC board has not deviated a bit in its pathetic parabola: cover for bureaucrats, never demand accountability from anyone, just do what you’re told. She was caught being wined and dined by bond salesmen who placed the massive bond on the ballot in 2016 under the phony guise of helping veterans, and that pretty much sums up her legacy.
It looked good from far, but it was far from good…
FFFF recently received an e-mail from something calling itself The Fullerton Gazette. The document touted a list of recommendations for the March Primary ballot yet contained no FPPC number and no political action committee name. Hmm. There among the recommendations was convicted trespasser and thief, Paulette Marshall for OC Board of Education.
Wouldn’t hurt a fly…
A quick trip to the Fullerton Gazette website revealed a very recently concocted site with ridiculous generic “articles” that only an idiot would read. But there buried in the other pabulum was a “story” about Marshall’s interview with some thing called the “Anaheim Education Bulletin.”
Someone left the water running…
A helpful link takes the curious reader to the Anaheim Education Bulletin website, another recently fabricated site with the same sort of crap we discovered on the Fullerton Gazette site. And once again, buried in the other trash is the interview with Marshall, nothing other than a political advertisement.
Another Chaffee con job. Sick of it, yet?
But now a name appears to give the thing a tincture of verisimilitude: Deborah Hayter. A quick internet search for this unusual names indicates some woman scratching out an existence as a publicist and PR person, which all makes perfect sense: an Astroturf campaign trying to look like a legitimate journalistic endeavor.
Riddle: what’s worse, an endorsement by a greasy political bagwoman, or the endorsing of a perjurer, a confessed thief, and a desperate office-seeker?
I don’t know, and I don’t need to.
Here is our lobbyist mayor, the ethically challenged Jennifer Fitzgerald endorsing the equally unspeakable Paulette Marshall to her fellow female Republican cohorts.
Birds of a feather, right?
Whoa! What’s this? Endorsing a non-Republican?
There are two things we may discern from this cozy relationship. The first is that Fitzgerald thinks she can get her scuzzy self re-elected without local party help, and second, more importantly, Curt Pringle, for whom Fitzgerald plies her wares, is betting the farm on the Chaffee Crime Family.
